{"id":2147,"date":"2008-12-09T20:58:52","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T20:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2147"},"modified":"2008-12-09T20:58:52","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T20:58:52","slug":"i_believe_the_w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=2147","title":{"rendered":"I Believe The Word Is “Kafkaesque”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s say you’re a factory worker and you’ve just learned that the factory is going to shut down in a matter of days. Your employer-based health insurance is also going to disappear, even though you’re pregnant and due to deliver any day now. In a desperate attempt to avoid getting stuck with a huge medical bill, you tell your doctor to induce labor. Absurd? Absolutely, but it also is a true story<\/a>. And the poor woman ended up getting stuck with the bill anyway. <\/p>\n

When the next administration takes office, I’m hopeful that we can finally stop arguing about whether our health care system needs repair and get to the business of actually repairing it. I’m not expecting miracles, but I hope a first step is providing states with additional funding for Medicaid and SCHIP. Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at MIT, makes a powerful case for viewing health care spending as economic stimulus<\/a>. Universal insurance coverage gives families greater discretionary spending power and more freedom to change jobs or careers. At the very least, a cash infusion into Medicaid and SCHIP might give overburdened hospitals and emergency rooms<\/a> a little relief. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s say you’re a factory worker and you’ve just learned that the factory is going to shut down in a matter of days. Your employer-based health insurance is also going to disappear, even though you’re pregnant and due to deliver any day now. In a desperate attempt to avoid getting stuck with a huge medical […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-yD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}